Somehow, despite the unreal amount of incredible tracks in that treasure trove, that was still just scratching the tip of the iceberg. Below were the five songs that leapt out most from an embarrassment of riches. Most of the names are familiar and some are acts in the midst of welcome resurgences. All of them are worth turning on and turning up, so push the volume levels up and go exploring. Enjoy.

1. Sports – Making It Right

A short while ago, Sports were hinting that their run might be over following the release of their excellent All of Something. Fortunately, as “Making It Right” makes abundantly clear, that wound up not being the case. They may even allude to that false alarm with the clever “you’re calling my bluff” line. In a little over 100 seconds, Sports proves that they’re not just back but that they’re at the absolute top of their game.

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2. Slaughter Beach, Dog – Fish Fry

As Slaughter Beach, Dog, Modern Baseball‘s Jake Ewald has been releasing music that’s been on par with — or threatening to outstrip — that of his main vehicle. “”Fish Fry” is yet another deeply absorbing entry into Ewald’s solo discography. Characteristically unassuming, “Fish Fry” is as sharp as anything Ewald’s released. Putting the modern day ennui of young adulthood under the microscope, the loneliness on display in”Fish Fry” almost sounds romantic before the reality of it all sets in and it just comes across as painfully sad, enhancing the song’s already magnetic pull.

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3. Magic Potion – Rest Yr Skull

Magic Potion already have a quality EP and LP to their name and have only improved over time. The Rest Yr Skull 7″ isthe next release on the table and the band have anchored it with the title track. Like a lot of bands on the consistently outstanding PNKSLM roster, the band pulls the majority of their influences from slacker punk and slacker pop movement of the ’90s, advancing the aesthetic with something intangibly modern. “Rest Yr Skull” is as fine of an example of that formula as anyone’s likely to hear all year, a charming slice of driving basement pop with an irresistible melody.

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4. Bad History Month – Being Nothing

For a time, it looked as if Bad History Month may have disappeared for good. Luckily, “Being Nothing” arrived last week to dissuade anyone from that notion. A career highlight in a fascinating and deeply inventive discography, “Being Nothing” fully celebrates the oddities that have made the project’s past releases so essential. Folk-informed, noise-damaged, and utterly arresting, “Being Nothing” could not have come from anyone else. Psychedelic overtones push one of the most defiantly nonconformist songs of 2017 to even greater heights. It’s unmissable.

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5. Radiator Hospital – Pastoral Radio Hit

“Pastoral Radio Hit” is the second glimpse at the forthcoming record from site favorites Radiator Hospital, whose “Dance Number” clip cracked the recent top 10 list for August. The song’s hard-charging at first blush, full of restraint at second, and brilliantly explores the dichotomy between the two at third. It’s an endlessly fascinating piece of music that lives up to its title and confirms that Radiator Hospital’s forthcoming Play The Songs You Like will be one of their discography’s most adventurous entries. Turn it up, put it on repeat, and find a new thing to love each time it winds to a close.

Technical difficulties forced Heartbreaking Bravery into an effective hiatus at the start of the year but, even through the visible inaction, behind-the-scenes work continued in earnest. Various outlets depths were exhausted, the site’s inbox maintained its regular flood of releases, and everything else that emerged was meticulously examined. Over the course of 2017’s first quarter (minus a week or so), more than 100 great records were released. 10 will be spotlighted in the very near future and the rest of the releases that caused a positive reaction can be found below. Enjoy.

As the year-end list slate of material approaches, this publication (and many others) have a tendency to get backed up. Being run by a single person puts Heartbreaking Bravery at a greater disadvantage in those terms. Other mitigating life factors have proven to be fairly significant in terms of time allotment. However, no matter how many things there wind up being to balance, keeping up with the latest releases never gets neglected. While there are a handful of tracks, music videos, and full streams that will be receiving (likely brief) individual features, there are many others that have recently emerged which deserve celebration. Those can all be accessed below, split into each respective category. Enjoy.

After turning some heads last year with “Again“, their contribution to a loaded 4-way split (Loose Tooth, Clique, and Mumblr rounded out the release), the quartet’s returned with a vengeance. “More” comes loaded with hooks, exhilarating moments, and genuine feeling. At every turn, the song provides something fascinating, from the tremolo picking that sets the tone of “More” to the rapid-fire hi-hat pattern to the earworm-ready bass line and guitar riff that kick the track into the fifth gear.

In less than three minutes, Ghost Gum offer a masterclass in dynamic structure, getting the most mileage possible out of a soaring chorus, a searing solo, and a compellingly muted verse that keeps everything grounded and breathes in some fractured humanity. Some aching backing vocals enhance the song’s half-haunted atmosphere to great effect and everything clicks in ways that both satisfy and induce genuine excitement.

When everything’s through, “More” stands as a song that not only lives up to the promise of its title but redefines that very same title as a winking understanding of how listeners should be feeling upon hearing the song’s final notes. Explosive without being bombastic and contemplative without dipping into tedium, “More” is a sharply crafted piece of work from a band that’s been continuously bettering themselves with each successive release. If the rest of their forthcoming release, The Past, The Future, Dwelling There Like Space, is anywhere near this good, it’ll be among the strongest releases of the year.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Each of the seven volumes that comprise this Watch This package contain 25 clips apiece. Due to the sheer volume of live videos that have come out during January, February, and March all of the packages will have the same introductory paragraph. Regular Watch This segments will resume on Sunday.]

It’s been a tremendous first quarter for live videos. While Watch This, Heartbreaking Bravery’s weekly series celebrating the very best of the live video format, hasn’t been in operation for roughly three full months, the information required to keep this thing humming (i.e., checking through hundreds of subscriptions and sources for outstanding new material) has been collected at regular intervals. If they were full sessions, single song performances, studio-shot, DIY captures, transcendent songs, or transcendent visual presentations, they were compiled into a massive list. 175 videos wound up making extraordinarily strong impressions, those videos will all be presented here, in the Watch This: The Best of 2016’s First Quarter extended package, one 25-clip presentation at a time.

I first came across Julia Leiby’s writing thanks to their contributions over at Post-Trash, where they continuously demonstrated a keen grasp of music and excellent taste. Over the past few months, we’ve had some light interactions across various social media platforms. Usually, it’s something simple- but close to every single time, it’s connected back to music. Another photographer/music writer who also writes music, Leiby constantly endorses the artists she loves and frequently acts as a voice of support. I’m excited to be welcoming them to the A Year’s Worth of Memories series and am excited to be hosting their piece, a lovely look at four songs that defined each season of their 2015. Find out what those songs are below and never hesitate to reach out to the people who are positively impacting your life.

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Winter
Tiny Planets – Sports – from the album Sunchokes

I started booking house shows in the spring of 2014, with one show in April and then more once my junior year of college was underway. Together, my friend Mitch and I would put together a bill and run things, asking for donations, setting up, and hosting the bands. Winter of 2015 was a particularly brutal winter with temperatures in the low teens and seemingly never-ending blankets of snow. I was dealing with the end of something I wouldn’t really call a ‘relationship’ but it was important to me nonetheless.

I was sleeping in until almost noon every day, and I skipped a 9:20 AM class I had so often that the times I did go, we were covering material that was completely foreign to me. But, the shows were really what I looked forward to, and they were so stellar that winter. People came out in droves to see bands like The Obsessives, Sports, Eskimeaux, and Adult Mom play in houses. The shows were packed and went off with a hitch every time, save for when a moshing crowd broke the wobbly floor of the Pink Mistress show house. One of my favorite shows of that winter was when Sports played at Wolf Haus. Carmen, Jack, Benji, and James play emotional, catchy power pop, and they went to Kenyon College which is about two hours outside of Athens.

The song “Tiny Planets” is my favorite on their record that was out at the time, an ode to the joy, nervousness and confusion that comes with new love, as Carmen belts out triumphantly, “you’re the reason why/ I can never hide / lying side by side / this is worth a try.” That winter was a golden age for shows and being excited about live music in Athens.

Spring

Yowler – Yowler – from the album The Offer

When I was 18 years old, I went to my first house show ever at a place called The Dollhouse. There was no AC in the house, it had pink walls, and I was feeling so undone and out of place around punks much older than me. I can’t remember who else played the show, but Saintseneca headlined. I remember there was no actual drummer, just a man stomping on a wooden box, as Zac Little feverishly played guitar and Maryn Jones provided gorgeous harmonies. After this show, I was so excited to go to college in Ohio and experience the music scene there. Saintseneca was the only band I knew who were from there, and their existence validated my choice to leave my home state of Maryland.

I have been following Maryn Jones’ music virtually since then.

Three days before my birthday in February 2015 Maryn released The Offer, a beautiful, intimate record made of two elements, just Maryn’s sweet voice and quiet guitar. I would walk around in the late spring, when it was getting warmer, listening to this record and feeling so at peace. As the weather thawed, so did my mind. This record helped me pull out of a deep sadness I had felt for months and months, and probably was part of the reason why I decided to do a girls rock camp and started to play guitar in March of 2015.

Summer

Yolanda – Doubles (formerly O-FACE) – from the EP Mint

Summer of 2015 was, in a word, wild. I expected a quiet summer at home, working retail, going to shows, hanging out with my friend Sarah from high school, sleeping in as late as I could and letting the time pass like the breeze. Instead, I started a band, played two shows with bands that I deeply admired, went to New York for almost a week, and recorded a 5-track EP in a studio, all while meeting a lot of new people who left lasting impressions on me.

At the time, I was listening to the Mint EP by the Philly-by-way-of-Bard band O-FACE, who are now called Doubles. They have a song called “Yolanda” which is an upbeat song addressed to a partner or friend about not doubting yourself, and the chorus is exuberant; singer Preston practically yells “You’re the one for me”. I had so many crushes that summer, and I would listen to this song and melt into my feelings, all while feeling motivated and confident to make music for the first time ever.

Fall/Winter

Plant Boy – Brittle Brian – from the album Verisune

Although Verisune by Brittle Brian came out in July of 2015, I didn’t really delve deep into it until the fall when I was back at school in Athens. Continuing to run shows, I was invested in difficult classes and feeling really disheartened about my major/chosen profession of photoj. I felt a pit of dread in my stomach when I went to my once most anticipated class, my capstone class for photojournalism. I was also talking to someone who lived very far away and hanging onto the last strands and memories of what I had with them.

My friend Adam, who has his own project called Lemon Meringue Die, told me about Brittle Brian and I just keep coming back to this record. Victoria Rose writes sparse, experimental pop songs about Daniel Johnston, touching, and love in a creaky, high voice and though her subjects are heavy, the record is soothing and perfect for winding down after a tough or disappointing day. I would basically listen to this record constantly from September to December and I still throw it on these days too. I remember playing a pretty terrifying solo show (my first ever solo show) and then crying during the next band’s set because my friends didn’t come to see me play.

They went to a party instead.

I hit up my friend Evan to try to feel better and he said ‘just put on Brittle Brian and chill out’ and once I got home I did just that. Songs like “Plant Boy” are reminiscent of Alex G in their ability to take you to a place that is reflective, honest, and cathartic. We listened to this record when my band went on our first tour because my drummer loves her stuff too. Looking back on 2015, I can’t wait to see what records will define my 2016. I’m really excited about the music coming out this year and what the future will hold for me.

Before diving into the particulars of the forthcoming lists, it’s worth addressing the distinction made in the headline. Each of the categories that received a list in 2015 (music videos, songs, EP’s, albums, odds and ends) will be expanded upon in this post. However, there are still two forthcoming film lists but each of those will include the honorable mentions along with the featured rankings. An obscene amount of great material came out over the 12 months that comprised the past year so any attempts to cover everything would be futile. If anyone’s exhausted the below lists, a more comprehensive version can be found by exploring the following tags: stream, full stream, EP stream, and music video. Explore some of the top tier picks that didn’t make it onto the year-end lists via the tags below.

Throughout the course of 2015 I’ve been fortunate enough to attend upwards of 100 shows, festivals big and small, and spend approximately half a year living in a city that hosted a mind-boggling amount of quality shows on a nightly basis. To that end, it’s probably unsurprising that I wound up taking over 10,000 photos this year alone. Over the course of the next few days, this site will be running seven volumes of the shots that stood out as personal favorites, whether that was due to their composition, sentimental attachment, or an intangible emotional or intellectual response. It’s been an honor to be able to take even the smallest part in the ongoing sagas of the artists in the photographs below and an additional thanks is due to the venues that allowed me to shoot (as well as the people who encouraged me to keep shooting).

Throughout the course of 2015 I’ve been fortunate enough to attend upwards of 100 shows, festivals big and small, and spend approximately half a year living in a city that hosted a mind-boggling amount of quality shows on a nightly basis. To that end, it’s probably unsurprising that I wound up taking over 10,000 photos this year alone. Over the course of the next few days, this site will be running seven volumes of the shots that stood out as personal favorites, whether that was due to their composition, sentimental attachment, or an intangible emotional or intellectual response. It’s been an honor to be able to take even the smallest part in the ongoing sagas of the artists in the photographs below and an additional thanks is due to the venues that allowed me to shoot (as well as the people who encouraged me to keep shooting).

Formatted in the same pattern as the last post due to the time constraints that CMJ prompted, the full streams collected in the interim from regularly scheduled coverage are listed at the very bottom of this post. It’s a decision that also allows the sole focus to be placed on Midnight Reruns‘ incredible sophomore effort, Force of Nurture. It’s worth noting that this is a band I’ve had the privilege of tracking since around the time of their first EP‘s release, which precedes this site’s existence, and they were one of the bands I created Heartbreaking Bravery to celebrate (they’ll always have the distinction of being the first band ever to appear on Watch This, which has now run for 100 segments).

During that time, I’ve been fortunate enough to catch a number of the band’s explosive live shows, which have– with good reason– mostly veered towards the material on Force of Nurture. The band put together a nice pre-release run for the album, including a very strong EP and the release of two of 2015’s best songs in “There’s An Animal Upstairs” and “Canadian Summer“. As good as all of those items were, they’d fail to suggest the extent of Force of Nurture‘s sheer weight, even if they were packaged together.

In a statement issued to Substream, who hosted the record’s premiere, guitarist/vocalist Graham Hunt spoke of the loss of a close personal friend, an event that reverberates throughout the record with a staggering force. It’s most noticeably present in the record’s connecting thematic elements; uncertainty, regret, struggle, and loss. Even Force of Nurture‘s most ostensibly positive moments come with the caveat of being opaque enough to suggest there could be a tremendously dark underlying subtext.

Aside from the record’s earned weariness, the compositions far exceed what the band accomplished on their extremely impressive self-titled debut, which is no mean feat. A very palpable debt to The Replacements is heavily reinforced by Force of Nurture‘s credits, which list Tommy Stinson (one of the group’s earliest supporters) as the record’s producer. While there are still aspects of the Thin Lizzy twin-lead dynamic that were so often cited in regards to their earlier work, the band leans more heavily on their Big Star influence this time around to exhilarating effect.

Hunt, as hinted at above, turns in a jaw-dropping lyric sheet that expertly bridges the record’s muted optimism with its struggles in solipism. Everything, down to our own most microbiological functions, is put on trial; no answers are granted and the questions that are posed cut deep. Debauchery runs rampant but the band never lets its determination flag, committing to “making people laugh” even in their bleakest moments.

As relentlessly dark as this is all sounding, the band still finds a way to present themselves through fiery guitar work, sun-soaked melodies, and propulsive rhythm section work that lends the proceedings the kind of vibrancy that renders Force of Nurture an addictive listen. It’s mid-section run, in particular, somehow manages to pull off a relative weightlessness in the face of its tragic, bruised lyricism. Whether its something like the strained relationship at the crux of “Where’s Ace?” or the dreamlike self-aggrandizement of “Sky Blue Water” that ends in a tragicomic defeat, there’s a very peculiar bite to the record that makes it feel deeply personal and unflinchingly vital.

By the time the band’s exhausted their arsenal of incredibly effective hooks (the only 2015 records I can think of that have approached being even remotely close to this successful in that sense are Sweet John Bloom’s Weird Prayerand Dogs On Acid’s self-titled), they’ve run an exhaustive gamut of hard-earned lessons and navigated the journey with a wary resiliency. As they well know, and devastatingly note on “Great Southern Rail”, the record’s sprawling eight minute closer, sometimes all it takes is just one gunshot.

As a personal exercise, Force of Nurture feels therapeutic in a way that seemed to be crushingly necessary. As a standalone full-length, it’s essential. Easily one of 2015’s most invigorating, affirming, and incendiary records, Force of Nurture aim goes far beyond most band’s goals and they hit their mark with a memorable emphasis. So, as things get difficult, depression lingers, houses burn, friends are lost, and seasons vanish to a place beyond recovery, we now have a deeply empathetic record to help us through those times. For that, we collectively owe Midnight Reruns a debt of gratitude- and a place for Force of Nurture in our collections.

Listen to Force of Nurture below and order a copy from Dusty Medical here. Beneath the embed, explore a list of some of the finest records to find release over the past few weeks.